Eating disorders cover wide group of disorders that are characterised by psychological and behavioural deviations related to food intake and body weight. Those are serious psychophysiological disorders that affect psychological, physical and social functioning of sick person and due to their complexity they certainly deserve far more attention and care on behalf of the public. The goal of this research is to gain insight into how psychodrama workshops contribute to self-experience, social interactions, ability of verbal and non-verbal expression, self-esteem and feeling of self-confidence with persons with eating disorders. This research was conducted through psychodrama workshops held in facilities of the Centre for Eating Disorders – BEA, at the address Ribnjak 38, Zagreb. The workshops were held in March 2016, and five participants were questioned during the research.
During this research, the data was collected by the qualitative method, using the method of focus group interview.Focus group interview was semi-structured and the important methods in regards to the goal of the research were shaped into three research questions regarding the contribution of psychodrama and self-experience: their own self-esteem as well as the feeling of self-respect and their own social interaction. The answers to the research questions were processed using the qualitative method.
The research results show that participants had positively valued the influence of elements of psychodrama at the emotional variables (feeling relaxed, feeling encouraged, intimacy, lightness, positive emotions, occurrence of empathy and altruism). The results point to the positive impact of psychodrama for better awareness of problems that eating disorder brings to all elements of life. We can presume that psychodrama workshops have positively contributed to better self-experience, social interactions, ability of verbal and non-verbal expression, self-esteem and self-respect with above described population.
Conclusion draws need for continuation of psychodrama workshops with eating disorder population.